Techno-laundry is shore thing at state-of-the-art Atlantic City plant

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. - It is among the most technologically advanced spots on the planet - for laundry.

With the churning and buzzing and whirling of its washers, dryers, and folding machines, all controlled by computer, Atlantic City Linen Supply Inc. is a study in automation. And adaptation.

Hundreds gathered last week as the ribbon was cut for the company's huge $14 million state-of-the-art plant, which can process as much as 125,000 pounds of soiled linen in a day. Here, the dozens of proper

washing, drying and folding cycles for various textiles are regulated with the flick of a switch.

"It's almost like, in the blink of an eye, we went from what was state of the art in the 1890s to being what is probably the most modern facility in the United States, probably in the world," said David Goldberg, chief

executive officer of the company.

That blink was prompted by a condemnation order for the company's previous site on South Carolina Avenue, delivered two years ago to Goldberg and business partner Tom D'Onofrio by the state Casino

Reinvestment Development Authority. The authority wanted to widen the street so it could funnel traffic from Route 30 and the expanding Marina District to uptown casinos.

To do so, the state needed the land beneath the old brick building where the laundry had operated for more then a century. The place had been a mainstay of the seaside resort, offering its indispensable 24-hour

guaranteed turnaround to hotels from the venerable Traymore and Chalfonte-Haddon Hall to the latter-day casino resorts.

As business grew, the laundry's piecemeal expansions had left it with a building that was drafty in the winter and almost unbearably hot in the summer.

Despite its appearance, the place functioned well, and became one of the city's largest non-casino employers, churning out enough clean sheets, towels and other linens to satisfy seven casinos' daily needs. The new

building, however, assures that the laundry will be able to keep up as more casinos open, company officials said.

In its new plant, AC Linen can process more than 300 phone-booth-size containers in that guaranteed 24-hour turnaround time. That is about 25,000 bed sheets; 30,000 bath towels; and an assortment of napkins,

bedspreads, uniforms and other linens.

The new facility is a Disneyland of laundry equipment that can do things your old Maytag cannot.

"A lot of laundries don't have the kind of space or automated equipment this laundry has," said Eda Anne Galeno, editor of the trade publication Laundry Today. "Laundries have come a long way, and this is a good

example of just how far. This is one incredible laundry."

Incoming dry cleaning gets a ride on a monorail that sorts and codes the items, and sends them on. Conveyor belts and shuttles weave among the washers, dryers and ironing machines, delivering the goods.

In the huge "tunnel" washers, the water temperature can be regulated to the exact degree. Clean laundry spills out one end as dirty laundry is fed into the other. From the dryers, towels emerge completely dried, while

sheets come out slightly damp to be automatically ironed and folded with minimal wrinkling.

A special air-filtration system changes the air within the plant seven times each hour to cut down on lint and other air particles and to create a better environment for the workers.

In the center of the 63,000-square-foot building is the control room, where each 135-pound load of laundry is tracked from the moment it enters the plant to the moment it is loaded onto delivery trucks for its return

"At first, we weren't sure what we were going to do when we received the condemnation order," said Goldberg, who purchased the laundry in 1986. "Other places like Vineland, Egg Harbor and Pleasantville

offered us some very attractive incentives to move our business there."

But local officials saw the value of keeping Atlantic City Linen in Atlantic City, and mounted an aggressive effort to find a new location for the business.

"This was not an easy project to put together," said Mayor James Whelan, who noted the laundry's history of more than a century in the city. "But there was no way we were going to let this business leave town.

particularly since it represented hundreds of jobs filled by Atlantic City residents."

The city and the casino authority brokered a deal with Resorts International Casino, which owned the property where the new plant was built, to purchase the land. As it happens, the same tract, on Delaware Avenue

between Atlantic and Arctic Avenues, was once owned by Goldberg's father, who operated a sundries distribution business on the site from the 1950s to the 1970s.